Beyond vs. Within decarbonisation

The ambitious goal of a decarbonized built environ-ment constitutes one of the most epis-temologically complex and technically challenging issues of our time, situated at the intersection of the evolving con-cept of sustainability, the reformula-tion of socio-economic paradigms, and the emerging awareness of the systemic impact of human activities on ecosystems.While early environmental thinking favored a predominantly ecological in-terpretation of sustainability, focusing on strategies to reduce environmental impacts, the contemporary horizon has expanded into a holistic perspec-tive, embracing “nature-based think-ing” (Randrup et al., 2020) and “trans-formative resilience” (Asadzadeh et al., 2022; Article 2 of EU Regulation 2021/241). These approaches diverge from the reductionist anthropocen-trism of traditional sustainable devel-opment, shifting the focus from mere technological solutions aimed at limit-ing human impact on the biosphere, towards a paradigm that recognizes the ontological value of ecosystems and the imperative need to preserve their intrinsic and extrinsic qualities.The shift from a conservative vision aimed at reducing environmental dam-age to a regenerative approach aimed at restoring biodiversity and enhancing ecological assets is reflected in the most recent international regulatory strate-gies. The European Union, with the Green Deal and directives that estab-lish the transition to “carbon neutrali-ty” and the “Nature Positive” approach, has instituted a regulatory governance that imposes binding objectives for the preservation and regeneration of ecosystems compromised by human action. This paradigm shift calls for a radical rethinking of settlement mod-els and strategies for designing the built environment, moving beyond the emergency and sectoral logic of energy efficiency policies to embrace a system-ic and integrated vision (Tucci et al., 2024), capable of reconciling housing needs, protection of territorial iden-tity, and safeguarding of environmental heritage. The issue of decarboniza-tion, however, cannot be reduced to a merely technical or regulatory debate: it urgently addresses the social and eco-nomic implications of the ecological transition (Madadizadeh et al., 2024). The climate emergency and policies re-configuring sustainability affect urban and territorial dynamics, particularly in contexts characterized by a building stock that is partly outdated and partly of historical-architectural value, as well